Giselle Chapman provides executive training at such major corporations as Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute and Bristol-Myers Squibb. She does it all by herself. Her Rancho Santa Margarita business, Chapman Business Solutions, has no employees.

"I do customized change management work with CEOs and their teams," Chapman said. "My marketing is word of mouth. The phone calls come directly to me." She does have an independent contractor do the books.

When she wanted advice about growing her business, Chapman went to the free business counselors at the Orange County chapter of SCORE.

Chapman has plenty of company in being what she calls a "solopreneur." Orange County has almost 268,000 businesses that have no employees. That's almost triple the number of Orange County companies with employees.

Many of these owners not only avoid growing too quickly, they're in no hurry to grow at all. They like running one-person firms.

The U.S. census defines businesses like Chapman's as "nonemployers," ones that have no paid employees, annual business receipts of at least $1,000 and are subject to federal income tax.

"Approximately 75 percent of all U.S. businesses are nonemployers," said Census Bureau spokesman William Bostic Jr. "These statistics provide the only source of information on the number of establishments and receipts at the local level for this important component of our nation's economy."

The census reports that these one-person firms are starting to proliferate again after the number declined both locally and nationwide in the recession.

In the newest report covering 2011, Orange County had 6,460 more nonemployers than in 2010, a 2.4 percent increase. The increase nationwide was 1.7 percent, to 22.5 million firms.

Policymakers don't pay much attention to these nonemployers because, by definition, they don't create a lot of jobs. They also account for less than 4 percent of private sector revenues, according to the Census Bureau. Orange County nonemployers grossed more than $15.3 billion in 2011 and their counterparts nationwide grossed $989.6billion.

Still, these tiny firms provide a wide array of products and services. Some examples:

•Yvonne Barrot manufactures healthy snacks in her Irvine home kitchen under the state Cottage Food Operation law. She plans to sell her treats under the brand name Bumble Bee in the Kitchen at school events and eventually in food stores.

•Norm Bour, who lives in Newport Beach, has run several businesses without employees, including a mortgage brokerage and his current one, a business-consulting service.

"When I was in the mortgage business, I was an employee earning base salary plus commission," Bour said. "In 2002, when I opened my own mortgage business, I specifically didn't want employees. I didn't want the headache or expense of employees."

He now is a consultant affiliated with Opis Network, a Newport Beach provider of such business services as marketing, business-plan writing and training.

"I talk with (nonemployers) all the time and the biggest reason we don't want employees is the cost of workers' comp insurance and payroll taxes," Bour said.

He added that he and owners like him have to be very careful when getting outside help for business tasks because the state and federal governments have strict rules about independent contractors vs. employees.

For example, a company cannot tell an independent contractor when, where or how to do a job and it cannot provide the tools and equipment.

"Some businesses can't get away without employees," Bour said. "A restaurant, you have to have employees, but a sales organization might not need them."

The census breaks out nonemployers into 18 broad industry categories, including agriculture, construction, retail and insurance. Various categories of services have the most nonemployers in Orange County.

Cost may be a motivator, but technology makes nonemployer firms possible.

"I do half my work by phone," Chapman said. "I work in person with teams and then supplement that with two months of coaching remotely using Skype and WebX (video and Web conferencing)."

Her business is growing as she adds services such as paid public speaking, executive coaching and workshops on employee engagement and customer service. But she resists the idea of building a big company.

"This is the first year that my schedule is completely sold out for the year," she said. "It's exciting that business is doing really well, but I haven't come to the place yet that I want my business to be that big. I've had people who want to partner with me, but it hasn't been the right fit."

After more than 30 years at the Orange County Register, Jan Norman is retiring. This is her last "It's Your Business" column.

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